2015 the year Steam officially operates in China

Found this article on techinasia. Nothing is at place yet but steam may officially get a release there based on reports. You can buy steam games in China right now but some games are locked and the payment option limited. Some Chinese steam users have said if steam gave more payment option it would be a lot more successful for Chinese gamers especially younger ones.

Sina Games is reporting that next year, the video game distribution platform Steam will begin officially operating in China. According to the report, the platform is currently in the middle of the government approval process.

For now, this report should be taken with a heaping pile of salt, because the Sina Games article is extremely light on details and says nothing about its sources beyond “information has been leaked.” Among other reasons to be skeptical, it’s not clear whether an online gaming platform like Steam could legally operate in China at all. Foreign online games must be operated in China by a local partner, but as Steam is a gaming platform rather than a game, it’s not immediately clear whether that law would apply.

That said, it is certainly possible that if Steam was applying to the Chinese government for approval, that information might be leaked to the press by gaming fans in the relevant departments of the Chinese system.

Steam is already available in simplified Chinese and is accessible in China, but not it does notofficially operate there at present. Currently, some region-locked games are unavailable, the platform does not accept Chinese e-payment options, and the lack of local servers can make download times absurdly long.

If Valve truly does aim to launch Steam in the country, it could ultimately prove to be a massive new source of revenue for the company, but it may not be such a boon for gamers themselves. An official Chinese Steam would mean much easier purchases and much faster downloads, but it would also probably mean that any games not officially approved by China’s Ministry of Culture would no longer be available to China-based users in the Steam store. Since few foreign game developers even apply for MOC approval, Chinese users would likely be stuck with a very meagre assortment of games.

(See: Here’s how Diablo 3 will be censored in China)

china boot legs most of its games and the government will censor everything so only a fraction of games can be played.

War. War never changes.

This was the only thing I could think of in response to the OP.

That's what people said about Russia but Valve said if you a provide a better service you can beat the pirate.

cant beat free

Isn't China's PC market mostly focused on cyber cafes? I know PC is huge there, but i wonder if Steam would be popular with them.

If Valve wants to make money in China, they'll need to adopt a "free to play" model. That's the only way they'll make money in China.

Internet cafe have been declining in china. With smart phones, better internet connection, and cheaper PCs many chinese especially in the city can now buy their own computer at home. There also lots of chinese users on steam. Games like counterstrike are very popular. With better internet connection there

looks like PC sales are about to go from very big gap first place, to super super insane big gap first place.

Cool to know. Will be interesting to see how it goes

Providing more options is always a good start.

There are Chinese people who do buy games from steam.....

Well Dota 2 is pretty big in China. They would be crazy not to try and push steam in China.

Good news if true.

Obviously piracy is not gone, but games are selling on Steam in Russia, so they must have done something right.

The same will happen in China. The market in China right now is what the market was like in Russia before Steam.

All steam needs is better support and it will be easier for chinese gamers to buy and play game.

Can beat free with hassle-free.

Last time i checked, Russia is the 2nd largest market in Europe for Valve.

And something 15 years before Steam was around you couldn't even buy a legit copy of any videogame there.

They just weren't officially published.

Some games you simply cannot play without the multiplayer activation key, so... might as well buy them on Steam sales.

Ever sine the expanding middle class the Chinese are much more likely to buy a decent gaming PC than play in some sweaty netcafe.

Sadly as steam started to expand and using the local currency of the other countries rather than the USD it lost some of its appeal and became more expensive (at least that's my case) :(